“Tristan is sitting in the chair next to you, glaring, while Liam, Finn, and Quinn are glaring at you from their respective corners. Aidan showed up an hour ago to glare at you and I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty sure that Declean is most likely glaring at you from across town, where he’s currently watching over the soulmate that you’ve been pretending doesn’t exist for the past month,” Marty explained, not bothering to look up from the file on her lap as she turned the page.
“And Connall?” Shayne asked, already having a pretty good idea where his brother was.
“He’s in London,” Liam said after a slight hesitation.
“Caireann?” Shayne asked as he sat up, ignoring the sharp pain and aches that accompanied the move and leaned back against the headboard.
“It’s Maddie now,” Liam said as Shayne took in the burns covering his chest, arms, and legs, all the places the ghosts had been touching him when Quinn pulled him from the room.
“How much longer do ye think he’ll torment himself over her?” Shayne asked, knowing that he would have lost his fucking mind by now if he’d been in Connall’s shoes. He couldn’t imagine being in love with a woman for more than a thousand years only to watch her fall in love with another man over and over again.
“Until the very end,” Liam drawled as Shayne glanced around the room to find his brothers glaring at him.
“Ye could have been killed,” Quinn bit out only to have Finn add, “Ye dumb bastard.”
“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Shayne reminded them.
“Ye still don’t,” Liam said, grabbing a thick yellow envelope off the bureau and tossed it to him.
“Meaning?” Shayne asked, sending his brother a questioning look as he turned the thick envelope over in his hands and ripped the seal open.
“She can sense us,” Liam said, confirming his earlier suspicions.
“How long?” Shayne asked after a slight hesitation, knowing the countdown began the moment that she sensed them.
“We think coming here today triggered the curse.”
“Which means that I have anywhere from a few days ta a couple of months before the curse comes for us,” Shayne said, knowing exactly how this was going to end.
With Ashlyn dying in his arms.
“We need ta talk about this plan of yers,” Liam said, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “Why are ye pushing her ta work with Shayne on yer case?”
“Because he knows this case better than I do,” Tristan drawled with a pointed look at Shayne that had his jaw clenching. “That’s how he passed the time while he watched over me. When I was a kid, he used to read the books that I brought home. He did the same when I went to college and the police academy. Now, he passes the time by reading the files I bring home.”
“Passing the time reading files doesn’t make me qualified ta work on this case,” Shayne pointed out.
“No, but finding people that don’t want to be found does,” Tristan added, making Shayne’s jaw clench.
After their mother sold Tadgh to the king, Shayne had been forced to swear an oath to the king so that he could watch over him. He did whatever it took to keep his brother safe. He’d trained the king’s men, led them into battle, punished them when they stepped out of line, and hunted down the king’s enemies.
All but one.
“She doesn’t want to work with me,” Shayne reminded them.
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Tristan said as Shayne took in everything in the envelope, from the driver’s license with the picture the hospital took of him for his visitor’s pass so that he could visit Tristan when he was in the ICU to the array of credit cards and debit cards with the name “Shayne MacNéill” printed across them.
“Does that plan include fraud and becoming someone’s bitch in prison?” Shayne asked as he glanced up to find his brothers sharing a look.
Clearing his throat, Quinn said, “We should probably talk about that.”
“Talk about what?” Shayne asked, tossing the envelope on the bed.
“Aidan went back,” Finn said, making him frown as he tried figuring out what his brother was talking about.
“Back where?” Marty asked as she looked up from the file.
“He went back to get everything from the cave,” Liam said, making everything inside of him go still as he found himself thinking about the stone tunnels beneath their home for the first time in years.
